UTI and Bacteriuria During Pregnancy: One and the Same?

“One and the same” is a figure of speech used to state that two or more people or things that might seem different are exactly the same person or thing. Antibiotic and diagnostic stewards draw a firm line between symptomatic urinary tract infection (UTI) and asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB), with the former meriting antibiotics to relieve the symptoms, and the latter a condition of bladder colonization that should be left untreated. They are decidedly not one and the same. In most patient populations, antibiotic treatment of ASB does not prevent recurrence or symptomatic UTI, and leads to more resistant organisms in the bladder.